They Grasp
by ghostesez
Summary: The ghost hands sway, as if waiting. Danny discovers what they were waiting for.


**A/N: Well, hello again! It's been *checks notes* three years since I've posted anything. I'm writing a new multi-chapter fic to be released soon. This is based off an idea that I had for that fic, which was scrapped.**

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It began not long after the accident. On a bright, yet oddly snowy day, Danny Fenton stopped on the sidewalk, feeling a brush against his ankle. He glanced down, expecting a lost shirt drifting along the snowbanks or the candy wrapper from his pocket having fallen out. What he did not expect to see was a hand reaching towards him from a large pile of snow. Danny yelped and began to push the snow away from the hand in an attempt to free the poor soul no doubt trapped underneath. He gasped as he found no body, no person under the snow. He absently brushed the remaining snow away despite seeing very clearly that there was nothing beneath.

The hand reached up from the sidewalk, as though it were a ghost phased partly into the concrete. Danny quickly turned his own hand intangible and grasped the phantom hand, pulling with all his might. The hand came, but nothing else. As it was freed from its snowy, concrete prison, the hand dissolved into the air, a misty substance that spread and vanished. A lump rose in Danny's throat. He dared not look at the ground for the rest of his walk to school.

As the months passed into years, Danny became familiar with the hands around Amity Park. Each was a singular entity, no two alike. Some were large, some were depressingly small. Some dark, some light. A couple looked burnt, and one was just a stump. Some donned nail polish and some carried accessories such as bracelets or watches. All stayed and none ever moved. The feminine hand in the park with it's hot pink nail polish was always reaching out from the roots of a tree in the park, and the masculine hand, gravelly and covered in soot always appeared in the middle of the Nasty Burger parking lot.

Danny came to welcome seeing the hands as he traveled around Amity Park. They often greeted him, and many seemed to recognize him as he passed. On particularly sorrowful days, Danny would sometimes stop and talk to them. He never could determine whether or not they understood him, as they softly swayed in the breeze. More than once, Danny asked Tucker and Sam if they could see the hands around town. They would frequently raise an eyebrow at him, sometimes they would look around as if to attempt to see them, but they would always respond with a disheartening, "No".

Once, he had even attempted to ask his parents about the ghost hands. "Can a ghost only partially manifest?" "Yes," they responded. "If a ghost is not strong enough to exist in a fully physical form, they may manifest as a disembodied voice or a strong emotional feeling." "What about just a single limb?" "No," they responded. "That would just be silly. If a ghost can manifest a limb, why not manifest a full body? That seems more logical."

It was not until two years after the first hand that Danny decided to ask a true ghost about the hands. "They reach for life, Danny." Clockwork looked dismayed as he said the words. "They miss their lives and only wish to be appeased. They cannot leave the Ghost Zone, not fully, but they have enough will to try. Why not help them try?"

And so, try Danny did. When he returned home to Amity Park, he visited the tree where the feminine hand swayed. He brought with him a single rose, picked off a nearby bush. He lightly touched the hand, and it allowed Danny to open its fingers. Danny shed a single tear as he placed the rose between the fingers on the hand. It stopped swaying and, as a light turning on at the flick of switch, vanished in a quick flash of green.

Every night for a month did Danny return to that tree. Never again did he see that same hand. Yet, he always did feel at peace there. Danny looked toward the rose bush and reached for it. Off plucked a small rose, barely blooming. He left the park, towards another recognizable hand. When he saw the little hand disappear in a flash of green, Danny returned to the bush. He plucked as many roses as the bush had and left, travelling Amity Park the rest of the night. The next morning, everyone in town seemed just a bit more at peace.


End file.
